The invention relates to a mounting for a muzzle member on a gun barrel of the type disclosed in German published Patent DE-PS No. 1230334. Such known muzzle member is mounted by means of two separate parts that are threadably mounted, one behind the other, on the free end of the gun barrel and are secured against loosening by rotation. An outer frusto-conical portion of one member includes longitudinal slits whereby the muzzle member is threadably mounted via extending portions of the member which are biased against an outer conical surface of the free end of the gun barrel and thereby are spread apart in such a way that they permit a rotation of the muzzle member relative to a rotational locking in the form of at least one pair of spring tongues defining a gap.
It is known that such muzzle member is tightly mounted on the gun barrel, because if such muzzle member is not sufficiently tightly mounted there inevitably occurs a reduction of the impact precision of a projectile fired therethrough.
This method of mounting a muzzle member has been found to have drawbacks. In particular the extensions forming a conical surface, in view of their slitted construction, present a relative yieldable stop member for the locked threaded connection, whereby the muzzle member can be secured against loosening by rotation and can be fixed in an axial direction, but the radial mobility of the muzzle member in the region of the free forward end of the gun barrel is only insignificantly influenced. This radial mobility is possible because, on the one hand, in front and behind the locking thread, as a result of the necessary flanking play movement the internal thread of the muzzle member must be centered via cylindrical bore surfaces, whereby there must be present a radial play between the bore surfaces and the gun barrel for purposes of providing a threaded mounting possibility of the muzzle member. On the other hand, according to tests, it has been established that such stressing of the meshing threads causes the forces absorbed by the threaded connection to be only poorly absorbed by the threads, whereby the loading of the threaded connection towards the gun barrel muzzle is already significantly reduced after a few threads so that the preponderant number of threads are only slightly or not at all loaded and therefore at firing radial oscillations can not be avoided during projectile guidance at the front end of the barrel. Thereby there can, for example, occur swing amplitudes at a muzzle outlet forming part of a muzzle brake which is arranged in front of the gun barrel free end which exceed the guide play about the strongly prestressed region of the frusto-conically shaped free end of the gun barrel. Directional deviations of the projectile and impact precision reduction is as a result of such phenomena.